Flashboot flash drive recovery. Why does the flash drive not work and how to restore it? Complete system freeze immediately after connecting the flash drive to the computer
Read, what to do if Windows does not display the connected device. How to restore functionality to such a device if this is the reason. A flash drive or any other USB drive should be automatically detected by the computer and displayed in Explorer and the “This PC” folder after connecting to the USB port.
Content:
Diagnosis of the problem
The first thing you need to do if the connected USB drive does not appear in the file Windows Manager, you need to check the tool Disk management.
To open Disk management in Windows 8/10, right-click on the menu Start and select "Disk Management". In Windows 7, press the Windows key + R key combination to open the dialog box "Run" and enter the command in it diskmgmt.msc.
Check the list of drives in the window Disk management and find the USB drive that is not detected. It should appear here even if it is not in the folder "This computer", and match in size. Sometimes it is defined as "Removable device", but not always.
If you do not see your disk or flash drive even in Disk Management, then try the following:
- Turn on the disk, if there is such a function. Some external hard disks have a separate power cable or are turned on using a separate key designed for this.
- Connect your device to another USB port. Disconnect the flash drive from this USB port and connect it to another. Perhaps one of the USB ports on your computer has failed.
- Connect the device to your computer without a USB hub. If the flash drive is connected to the computer via an extension cord or USB hub, try disconnecting it from it and connecting it directly to the computer. Perhaps the reason is in the hub.
- Try another computer. Connect the flash drive to the USB port of another computer and see if it is recognized by it. If the device is also not detected by another computer, then most likely the problem lies with it.
Solution
If the problem options described above do not apply to your case, then your problem can most likely be solved using one of the methods described below. Depending on what you find in Disk Management, there are options for solutions to the problem that has arisen with identifying an external storage medium.
If Windows sees the disk, but cannot read it, then this means that it has a file system that it does not support. In this case operating system will prompt you to format the disk before using it. But don't rush to do it! This will destroy all your data.
If other computers see the flash drive, but yours doesn’t
If other computers detect your USB drive, but yours does not, then most likely there is a problem with the device drivers.
To check this, open Device Manager and look for Disk devices And USB controllers. See if there are any devices marked in yellow in these sections exclamation mark. If there is such a device, right-click on it and select Properties. The properties will contain information about the error and driver status.
To fix the driver problem, right-click on the device, select Properties / Driver / Update.
If the disk is visible in Disk Management
If the disc is visible in Disk Management, but it does not have a letter, then it is for this reason that it may not be displayed in Windows Explorer. In order for the system to start displaying it in Explorer, such a drive must be assigned a letter.
To do this, right-click on it and select "Change drive letter or drive path". If there is no such item in the pop-up menu, this may be due to the absence or unsupported file system type of the storage medium.
In the menu that opens, you will see that the drive does not have a letter assigned - assign it. To do this, select Add / / Ok.
If the disk is visible in Disk Management, but it is not allocated
If the disc is visible in Disk Management, but it is not distributed, which means that it is not formatted. In order for such a disk to become operational, right-click on it and select "Create Simple Volume".
Select the maximum suggested partition size and assign a drive letter suggested by the system. After this, the disk will be normally detected by the system and ready for use.
If the disk is visible in Disk Management but cannot be formatted
If for some reason the disk cannot be formatted, then to restore its functionality, you can completely erase it and then re-create the partition.
Note. As a result of such manipulation, all data from the disk (as well as flash drives or memory cards) will be permanently deleted. Therefore, worry about their safety in advance - scan the disk or flash drive using Hetman Partition Recovery, and save your data in a convenient place.
To clean the disk, open Command line as administrator and clean it up using the command diskpart – "clean".
Greetings to all blog readers!
Probably most people who work with a computer more or less often have a flash drive (or even more than one). Sometimes it happens that a flash drive stops working normally, for example, due to unsuccessful formatting or as a result of some errors.
Quite often, the file system can be recognized in such cases as RAW, the flash drive cannot be formatted, and it cannot be accessed either... What to do in this case? Use this small instruction!
These instructions for restoring the functionality of a flash drive are designed for a variety of problems with USB media, except for mechanical damage (the manufacturer of the flash drive can, in principle, be any: kingston, silicon-power, transced, Data traveler, A-Data, etc.).
And so... let's get started. All actions will be described step by step.
1. Determining the parameters of the flash drive (manufacturer, controller brand, amount of memory).
It would seem that it is difficult to determine the parameters of a flash drive, especially since the manufacturer and amount of memory are almost always indicated on the flash drive body. The point here is that USB drives of even one model range and the same manufacturer can have different controllers. A simple conclusion follows from this - in order to restore the functionality of the flash drive, you must first accurately determine the brand of the controller in order to choose the right utility for treatment.
A typical type of flash drive (from the inside) is a board with a microcircuit.
To determine the brand of the controller, there are special number-alphabetic values specified by the VID and PID parameters.
VID - vendor ID
PID - Product ID
They will be different for different controllers!
If you don’t want to kill the flash drive, then under no circumstances use utilities that are not intended for your VID/PID. Very often, due to an incorrectly selected utility, a flash drive becomes unusable.
How to determine VID and PID?
The easiest option is to run a small free utility CheckUDisk and select your flash drive from the list of devices. Next you will see all the necessary parameters to restore the flash drive. See screenshot below.
VID/PID can be found without using the utility.
To do this, you need to go to Device Manager. In Windows 7/8, this is conveniently done through a search in the control panel (see screenshot below).
In the device manager, the flash drive is usually marked as “USB Mass Storage Device”, you need to right-click on this device and go to its properties (as in the picture below).
In the “details” tab, select the “Equipment ID” parameter - the VID/PID will appear in front of you. In my case (in the screenshot below) these parameters are equal:
2. Search for the necessary utility for treatment ( low level formatting)
Knowing VID and PID we need to find special utility, suitable for restoring our flash drive. It is very convenient to do this, for example, on the website: flashboot.ru/iflash/
If suddenly nothing is found on the site for your model, it is best to use a search engine: Google or Yandex (query like: silicon power VID 13FE PID 3600).
In my case, the Formatter SiliconPower utility was recommended for a flash drive on the flashboot.ru website.
Actually, that's all. Of course, this recovery instruction is not the simplest (not 1-2 buttons to press), but it can be used in many cases, for almost all manufacturers and types of flash drives...
All the best!
How to recover an SD card or USB flash drive if the computer does not see it, does not read or write data? Problems with flash drives are rarely caused by natural wear and tear. More often, problems with them are caused by users ignoring the rules for safely removing the device, experiments with various software in which these flash drives are involved, as well as their initially lousy quality. Below we look at the list possible actions, carried out in a Windows environment, which can solve the problem, unless, of course, the cause lies in a mechanical failure. And we, friends, will go from simple to complex.
Recovering SD cards and USB flash drives in Windows
- Note: below we will only talk about restoring the functionality of flash drives, but not about saving the data stored on them. This is a separate topic, and there is something about this on the website; you can also use this program for. Most of the methods proposed below for recovering SD cards and flash drives will lead to the loss of their data.
1. Hardware lock
SD cards, MicroSD adapters and flash drives can be hardware protected from writing data or completely blocked even for reading. On such devices there is a lock switch, which must, accordingly, be set to the “Unlocked” position.
2. Problems not related to the drives themselves
The cause of problems with SD cards and flash drives may be Windows security policy. You need to find out whether access to removable drives is blocked (in whole or in part of writing data to them) by the computer administrator. You also need to check the card reader or ports Computer USB. If everything is fine with the latter, the card reader reads other SD cards, but problems still arise with the flash drive, no matter how you connect it to others USB ports, go ahead.
3. Windows Explorer
Standard formatting tools Windows Explorer can help in simple cases such as unsuccessful writing of data to a flash drive. Or when for some reason a smartphone, tablet, camera or other device cannot cope with this operation regarding SD cards. In any of current versions In Windows, in the Explorer window on the drive, call up the context menu and click “Format”.
Leave the original file system and first try a quick format.
If it fails, repeat the operation, but with full formatting (uncheck the fast box).
4. Windows Disk Management
You can try to perform the formatting procedure in disk management. To launch this tool, enter in the system search field:
diskmgmt.msc
In the disk management window, focusing on the size of the drive, we look for it among the disks connected to the computer. And in context menu, called on it, we start formatting.
You can immediately select full formatting.
If the flash drive has a partition structure like a hard drive, you must delete each of those partitions. This is done using the “Delete Volume” option in the context menu.
And then, in place of the resulting unallocated space, you need to create a single partition. To do this, in the context menu on this very unallocated space, launch the “Create a new volume” operation and follow the instructions of the step-by-step wizard.
5. Programs for low-level formatting
Standard formatting tools may not help in complex cases, for example, when flash drives are displayed (in the same Explorer or Disk Management) as unrecognized devices with the RAW file system. The latter means that either Windows environment does not understand the file system of the drive, or there is no file system as such in principle. Actually, this is what causes problems with a flash drive or SD card when it works on other devices, with other operating systems. In such cases, third-party Windows programs designed for so-called low-level formatting will help restore the flash drive.
In fact, low-level formatting is a procedure that is carried out either in the production conditions of flash device manufacturers, or in serious specialized services. Various types of Windows software that claim to perform this kind of operation actually perform a regular full format, but using mechanisms that differ from those used by the operating system. Such programs cope well with flash drive problems if these problems arise at the file system level. Let's look at two of these programs.
HDD Low Level Format Tool
http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/
Shareware portable program HDD Low Level Format Tool can format different types storage media, in particular SD cards and USB flash drives. After unpacking the archive with the program, run it and agree to the license terms.
We choose free use.
Directly in the program window we indicate the problematic drive and click “Continue”.
We confirm the decision.
We wait for the operation to complete and check the operation of the media.
SDFormatter
http://flashboot.ru/files/file/355
A completely free small program called SDFormatter is another tool for so-called low-level formatting. Works with both SD cards and USB flash drives. Install SDFormatter into the system, launch it, and indicate the problematic flash drive in the “Drive” column. Click “Format”.
The program wants to make sure that our intentions are serious, click “Ok.
He asks not to touch the drive while the operation is being performed.
Upon completion, test the flash drive or SD card. If this does not help, repeat the operation with the settings for complete overwriting of sectors (nothing more than full formatting). Press “Option”, select “Full (OverWrite)”. And also click “Format” at the bottom.
If using the above methods it was not possible to revive the flash drive, and it is still under warranty, you need to stop at this stage. And do not take any further action except contact the seller with a request to replace the device. All the actions described below should be resorted to only when, in fact, there is nothing to lose. The instructions below apply to USB flash drives, SD and MicroSD cards. However, in the case of the latter, the likelihood of recovery is extremely low.
6. D-Soft Flash Doctor
D-Soft Flash Doctor performs so-called low-level formatting, and at the same time also detects damaged sectors (cells). Well, and, accordingly, knows how to block them and replace them with backup ones. The program can help when flash drives or SD cards have difficulty reading individual files located on damaged sectors. The program is free and portable. I did not find the official website, but it can be freely downloaded on the Internet.
In the D-Soft Flash Doctor window, the first thing you need to do is run a scan to detect errors.
In my case, there were no damaged (broken) sectors.
But if in your case, friends, the scan results are different and bad sectors are detected, we start the recovery process.
The window for performing this operation promises that the process will not last longer than 10 minutes, but in fact, reassigning bad sectors on a drive with a capacity larger than 4 GB can take quite a long time. So it is better to run the recovery operation at night.
7. Flashing the memory controller
Programs for so-called low-level formatting or their analogues, which in any other form claim to be able to resuscitate all types of SD cards and/or USB flash drives, turn out to be powerless in the event of a software failure of the controller, when it requires flashing. This problem can have different symptoms, but more often it is either the computer does not see the drive completely, or it sees it and can even read the data, but cannot format it by any means. In particular, due to write protection even though the drive is not locked by hardware.
Various problems with USB drives or flash drives are something that probably every owner faces. The computer does not see the flash drive, files are not deleted or written, Windows writes that the disk is write-protected, the amount of memory is displayed incorrectly - this is not a complete list of such problems. Perhaps, if the computer simply does not detect the drive, this guide will also help you: (3 ways to solve the problem). If the flash drive is detected and works, but you need to restore files from it, first I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the material.
If various ways fixing USB drive errors by manipulating drivers, actions in Windows Disk Management or using the command line (diskpart, format, etc.) did not lead to positive result, you can try utilities and programs for repairing flash drives provided by both manufacturers, for example, Kingston, Silicon Power and Transcend, as well as third-party developers.
On the official website of Silicon Power in the “Support” section there is a program for repairing flash drives from this manufacturer - USB Flash Drive Recovery. To download you will need to enter an address Email(not checked), then the UFD_Recover_Tool ZIP archive is downloaded, which contains the SP Recovery Utility (requires .NET Framework 3.5 components for operation, will be downloaded automatically if necessary).
Similar to the previous program, SP Flash Drive Recovery requires an Internet connection to work and restoration of work occurs in several stages - determining the parameters of the USB drive, downloading and unpacking a suitable utility for it, then automatically performing the necessary actions.
Download the repair program Silicon flash drives Power SP Flash Drive Recovery Software is available for free from the official website http://www.silicon-power.com/web/download-USBrecovery
If you are the owner of the drive Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0, then on the official Kingston website you can find a utility for repairing this line of flash drives, which will help format the drive and bring it to the condition it had when purchased.
You can download Kingston Format Utility for free from https://www.kingston.com/ru/support/technical/downloads/111247
ADATA USB Flash Drive Online Recovery
The manufacturer Adata also has its own utility that will help fix flash drive errors if you cannot read the contents of the flash drive, Windows reports that the disk is not formatted, or you see other errors related to the drive. To download the program you will need to enter serial number flash drives (so that exactly what is required is loaded) as in the screenshot below.
After downloading, run the downloaded utility and follow a few simple steps to restore the operation of the USB device.
Official page where you can download ADATA USB Flash Drive Online Recovery and read about using the program - http://www.adata.com/ru/ss/usbdiy/
Apacer Repair Utility, Apacer Flash Drive Repair Tool
Several programs are available for Apacer flash drives - different versions of Apacer Repair Utility (which, however, cannot be found on the official website), as well as Apacer Flash Drive Repair Tool, available for download on the official pages of some of the Apacer flash drives (look specifically on the official website your USB drive model and look at the downloads section at the bottom of the page).
Apparently, the program performs one of two actions - simple formatting of the drive (Format item) or low-level formatting (Restore item).
Formatter Silicon Power
Formatter Silicon Power is a free utility for low-level formatting of flash drives, which, according to reviews (including in the comments to the current article), works for many other drives (but use it at your own peril and risk), allowing you to restore their functionality when no other methods don't help.
The utility is no longer available on the official SP website, so you will have to use Google to download it (I do not provide links to unofficial locations within this site) and do not forget to check the downloaded file, for example, on VirusTotal before launching it.
SD Memory Card Formatter for repairing and formatting SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards (including Micro SD)
The SD Memory Card Manufacturers Association offers its own universal utility for formatting the corresponding memory cards if problems arise with them. Moreover, judging by the available information, it is compatible with almost all such drives.
The program itself is available in versions for Windows (Windows 10 is also supported) and MacOS and is quite easy to use (but you will need a card reader).
You can download SD Memory Card Formatter from the official website https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/
D-Soft Flash Doctor program
The free D-Soft Flash Doctor program is not tied to any specific manufacturer and, judging by reviews, can help fix problems with a flash drive through low-level formatting.
In addition, the program allows you to create an image of a flash drive for subsequent work not on a physical drive (to avoid further malfunctions) - this can be useful if you need to get data from a Flash drive. Unfortunately, the official website of the utility could not be found, but it is available on many resources with free programs.
How to find a program to repair a flash drive
In fact, there are much more such free utilities for repairing flash drives than are listed here: I tried to take into account only relatively “universal” tools for USB drives from different manufacturers.
It is quite possible that none of the above utilities are suitable for restoring the functionality of your USB drive. In this case, you can use the following steps to find the program you need.
Additionally: if all the described methods are repaired USB drive didn't help, try.
Everyone understands something different by flash drive recovery, so this material contains the most common problems that you may encounter.
If you are not prepared for the fact that you may permanently lose files on your storage device, turn to professionals for recovery.
Recovery from viruses
Some malware hide the contents of the USB drive from the user.To return them, we will work with the command line.
For those who don’t know, it starts in exactly the same way as DiskPart (see reducing storage space), only instead of “diskpart” write “cmd”
- Type the command (without quotes): “Z:dir /x /ad” (change Z to the letter of your flash drive). Click
- If command line issues the command “E2E2~1” in response, then we are dealing with the consequences of virus activity.
- Write “ren E2E2~1 NEWF”, click
- The files and folders on the flash drive will return to their original, working state.
Files were deleted from the flash drive (manually or after formatting)
Sometimes it is possible to recover information. The first thing to do is not to write anything else to it, because... any new information destroys part of the old.We use free program Recuva.
After installation, run the program and through the “Setup Wizard” select the device from which you want to recover data
Specify the required file type (all are possible)
The program will scan, count the files found and display them in a list with a detailed description.
Those marked with a green circle can be saved. The red ones are lost forever, and the yellow ones are lost depending on your luck.
Select the required files and click on the “Recover” button
Specify a save location on your computer.
If the required files were not found, Recuva will offer to perform an in-depth analysis. It will take longer, but can detect a lot of data.
Flash drive is not detected when connected
The way to restore is as follows: we find out the serial number of the device, then go to the site containing recovery programs and look for the one that matches the number.The downside is that if the program is not found, then there is nothing you can do about it. And second: if the program is found, then it is best to run it in Windows XP. Many utilities were released a long time ago and have not been updated, so with new ones Windows versions they may have conflicts that interfere with their work.
How it works:
1. Connect the USB flash drive to your computer.
2. Go to Control Panel → System → Device Manager.
3. Open the USB Controllers tab.
4. Select "Storage Device"
5. Right-click on it and click “Properties”.
Here we are interested in the “Details” tab → Device Instance Code (or “Hardware ID”).
6. You need to remember 2 four-digit numbers: one comes after PID, the second after VID.
If “0000” is displayed instead of the code, this indicates that the flash drive is damaged too seriously and this method will not work.
7. Go to the website and enter the received codes.
8. See the “UTILS” column. If the name of the program is written somewhere, then copy it.
9. Go to the “Files” section of the same site and use the search to find and download the desired application.
Reduced storage space
In this case, simply formatting the device will not help. You can correct the situation with using DiskPart Windows.To launch it in...
Windows XP
Start → Run → diskpart → OK.Windows Vista/7
Start → Search for “diskpart” → Run the found applicationIn all versions, including 8/8.1
Win+CTRL → diskpart → OK
In the window that opens, proceed as follows:
After entering the command, always press Enter, everything is written without quotes.
1. First command: “list disk”. It will display a list of all connected storage devices, including hard drives.
2. Select the number that corresponds to your flash drive and write “select disk (number)”.
3. Write “select partition 1”.
4. "delete partition".
5. “create partition primary”
6. We will receive a long message. Enter “clean”.
clean
7. Done. Now go to My Computer, right-click on the flash drive (now it does not display the size and does not have a file system) and select “Format”.
8. Now select the desired file system (if you don’t know what it is, then select NTFS) and in the “Volume Label” enter the name of the flash drive (whatever you want, in Latin letters).
9. Click Start. Once formatting is complete, the flash drive will be restored.
If you receive the error “Windows cannot complete formatting,” then go to “Run” (as with diskpart and cmd), enter “diskmgmt.msc” and click OK.
In the “Disk Management” window that opens, find your removable drive, right-click on the volume column and select “Format” or, as in my case, when formatting is not available, “Create simple volume”.
A window will open, leave the settings in it as default. After this, formatting will be completed.
The actual volume of the purchased flash drive is less than stated
If the error is several hundred megabytes, then this is normal, as it should be. When buying any storage medium, do not expect that 100% of the declared volume will be available to you: the drive needs part of it for its needs.If the difference reaches several gigabytes, then one of two things happens:
- The previous method may help.
- You bought a fake. This is especially true for flash drives and memory cards ordered from China, but they can easily sell this here too. Therefore, if you have a receipt, return to the store.
All of the above refers to software defects, or to simple defects (counterfeits). As for mechanical damage, it is definitely better to entrust such work to people with experience and experience in restoration. In addition, the software methods are the same for both memory cards and memory cards, but mechanical “injuries” are treated differently.
